The Prophet Sees All
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: I'm No Angel tag: A prophet, an ex-angel, and two monster-hunters together in a bunker. Or, a day in the freaky life of Kevin Tran. (Kevin POV)


**The Prophet Sees All**  
K Hanna Korossy

You didn't exactly run into a lot of people in the bunker. Dean and Sam made up the whole rest of the population, and these days, that suited Kevin just fine. After the last year, his social skills had all the finesse of a rusty hatchet, and surprises were anxiety attacks waiting to happen.

So the sight of the dude in the hallway, a head shorter than those giant Winchesters and not wearing flannel, stopped Kevin short. He bobbled the sandwich plate and Coke for a moment, trying to figure out if he should run, if there was some kind of alarm button he should hit? Then the guy turned and recognition dawned.

"Castiel!"

The angel jumped—which, weird: weren't angels supposed to be, like, above that sort of thing?—and stared at Kevin with obvious confusion.

Oh, right, the angel shower. Guy had to still be reeling from that. Kevin's mouth twisted sympathetically. "Sorry, uh. I don't know if you remember me…"

"The prophet. Kevin Tran," Castiel said, but he was distracted, glancing around the hallway like he was lost.

Did angels get lost? Maybe if their wings were burned off. "Can I, uh, help you…?"

Castiel peered at him again, and Kevin felt himself shrink a little under that gaze. One of the last times Kevin seen him, Castiel had healed the finger Crowley had cut off. Kevin had a healthy respect for the angel's power, and even now, neutered or not, something about him still made goosebumps shiver along Kevin's arms.

"Uh…"

"You live here."

It didn't sound like a question, but it was the first thing Castiel said that Kevin could actually respond to, so he grabbed at it. "Yeah! Well, for now. I was on Garth's boat, but Crowley found me, and before that…" …was probably not something an angel cared about. Kevin took a breath. "So, yeah, I'm here. Dean and Sam said it was the safest place to be."

A shadow chased across the angel's face.

Kevin hugged the Coke to himself, trying to figure out what he'd said wrong. Being safe? From what Dean had said, it didn't sound like the angels could head home anytime soon. "Are you…staying here, too?"

If anything, that seemed to make the angel cringe even more. "No. I…cannot stay."

"Oh." Kevin looked down the hallway, wishing one of the Winchesters would show up because this was seriously awkward. He was starving, his grilled cheese was getting cold, but he couldn't just leave the guy there when he looked so lost. He opened his mouth, still casting about for something to say.

"I am human now."

Kevin's mouth stayed open.

"I…" Castiel looked away. With a human—okay, someone who was used to being human—Kevin would have said he looked ashamed. "I have…done things. Trusted the wrong person. Lost my faith. Known a woman carnally."

Kevin choked on some air.

"I have failed both my Father and my friends."

"I'm… Dude, I'm sorry," Kevin stammered. Checked the hallway frantically again for freaking Winchesters who'd left him to this freaking bizarre conversation. But if they didn't want Castiel there because of something he'd done, no wonder they were making themselves scarce. He envied them, the jerks.

The angel—former angel—looked slumped, defeated.

Kevin swallowed, straightened. Okay. Okay, so, prophet. He should know what to say. "My mom's dead," he blurted out, and immediately felt his eyes sting.

Castiel looked up, brow furrowed.

"Or at least…Crowley says she's as good as dead. And my girlfriend. And, you know, pretty much my whole future."

Okay, so as pep talks went, this one was a real downer, but the guy was listening.

"But…there's always hope, you know? One thing we humans are really good at is hope. Even when it looks like, you know, the end of the world." Dang, maybe he should read more than ancient tablets.

But Castiel was looking at him differently, like he was seeing if he meant it. And, Kevin realized with a little surprise, he actually did.

Not like that really solved the guy's problems. "Uh, I'm sure if you wanted, Dean would let you—"

"No." The cut-off was sharp and final.

That was weird, too, but no more than the rest of the conversation. "Okay, uh. So…see you around then, I guess."

"Around where?"

Kevin blinked. "Uh. Here?"

Castiel sighed, sounding very human at that moment. "I…hope so, Kevin Tran." Then he visibly gathered himself and trudged on.

Really weird. He'd have to ask Sam or Dean what that was about.

His stomach growled.

Right. After lunch.

00000

"Kevin." A knock on his half-open door. "Can I come in?"

Kevin glanced up from the notes scattered across the desk, smiling wanly at the greasy bag Sam held. "Dinnertime?"

"Uh, more like midnight snack." Sam plopped the bag down on the empty plate on the corner of Kevin's desk. "Dean says you're not eating vegan anymore?"

"Ha." Man, some parts of his life were so far away, they might as well have been someone else's. "Kinda lost the point of healthy living a while back, you know?"

Sam ghosted a smile. "Yeah. I do." He turned, gestured to Kevin's bed. "Can I…?"

Kevin waved a hand of permission and dug into the bag. Wow, how had he lived so long without barbeque ribs, anyway?

"So, uh…I'd like to ask you something," Sam continued, hands clasped between his open knees.

"Okay," Kevin said around a full mouth. Sam had brought him the food, after all.

"I want you to, uh…check me for the influence of any spells."

Kevin paused his chewing, not sure he'd heard that right. "Huh?"

Sam grew more animated. "I know it sounds weird, but, hear me out. I've been having these…not blackouts, exactly, but, missing time, sort of? I'm talking to Dean, and suddenly the subject's different and he's saying things like he expects me to know what he's talking about, but…I don't."

Kevin lifted an eyebrow. "So you immediately went to 'spells'?"

Another quirk of the mouth from Sam. "Well, first I had the local clinic run some tests, but it doesn't seem to be physical. Ran a couple other kinds of tests myself from our side of the tracks. Nothing."

Kevin frowned, licking sauce from his lips. "What does Dean say?"

"He doesn't see the problem. But I know he's been worried about me since the Trials and, you know Dean, he's, like, the King of Denial, so…what do you think?"

"So…you want me to run a spellcheck?" Kevin asked, breaking into a grin.

Sam gave him the look he gave Dean when he was being an idiot. Kevin had seen it often.

He cleared his throat. "Uh, yeah, okay, I can look into that."

"Actually, I've got the rite here. Someone else just needs to do it."

Reluctantly, he set the ribs down and wiped his hands on a wad of napkins before taking the paper. A glance at the words—Latin, of course—and the bowl and hyssop branch almost made him laugh. Right, why not? His life wasn't weird enough already. "Okay," he said. "What do I do?"

It was pretty simple: reading the chant, dipping the hyssop into…whatever was in the bowl, and brushing Sam's head, hands, and feet with it. At the end, there was a faint sizzle of power, not unlike the static charge he felt each time he handled the tablets.

"That was it?" he asked skeptically.

Sam was peering around like he'd expected…something more, too. "Uh, yeah, I think so."

"Huh. Guess you're clean."

"Yeah." He didn't look too happy about it.

Kevin grabbed the ribs. "You know, I lose time, too. One minute I'm thinking about what a symbol means, the next, it's ten minutes later and I have half a page of notes I don't remember writing. I think it's the stress. Or maybe being around this stuff all the time," he motioned at the tablets, the hyssop. And frowned. "You don't think it's, like, radiation or something, do you?"

Sam's shoulders sat back, the way they did when he felt better about something. One of the many tells the fake Sam and Dean hadn't had. "If it is, Dean and I've been exposed a lot longer than you have," he said ruefully. He thumped his knees and stood. "You're right, it's probably nothing, just tired. Been a long…" He blinked. "…decade."

Kevin smiled. "Tell me about it."

"Yeah," Sam said. He squeezed Kevin's shoulder in a rare fond gesture as he headed toward the door. Maybe Dean had been right about their being family. A really screwed-up, bizarre, seriously unhealthy family, but still.

"Oh," Kevin remembered as Sam was about to leave. He waited until the guy turned back. "Castiel. Is he…okay?"

Sam looked troubled at the mention. "I'm not sure. He's human now, you know? We thought he was gonna stay with us, but he told Dean he had to leave. I think he's trying to protect us, but…" A moody shrug. "He's been through a lot, too."

"Hmm." To be fair, his mouth was full, but he also didn't have much to add to that. Story of all of their lives. There hadn't been a single normal thing in his existence since lightning had struck that first night. For all Kevin knew, he'd been comatose in the hospital since, and this was all a twisted dream.

Still, he thought as Sam left. Missing time and an uneasy angel and spellcheck— _heh_. Even his mind wasn't this creative. Which meant he'd better get on that angel tablet, because something important was going on here, and they needed to figure out what.

You could always wipe barbeque sauce off stone tablets.

00000

The clock said 3:33. On the houseboat at least there'd been windows, but in the bunker there was no telling if it was early morning or early afternoon. Then again, with the hours the Winchesters kept, it probably didn't make much difference.

Case in point: walking into the kitchen a few minutes later to find Dean moodily drinking alone.

Then again, if you were drinking alone at 3:33, whether it was p.m. or a.m., you were probably already moody. And from what Kevin had seen, the Winchesters pretty much lived in a constant state of angst.

So all he said was "Hey," nodding as he shuffled to the refrigerator. Maybe they still had some of those burritos left…

In his peripheral vision, Dean pulled in a deep breath and sat up straighter. "Hey, Kev." Then, belatedly, "Shouldn't you be sleeping?"

Okay, probably 3:33 a.m. then. Again, not like that had any relevance here. Kevin paused to give the guy a pointed look, which Dean accepted gracefully.

Kevin rummaged a minute. A half-empty pan of lasagna—that had potential—a lot of beer, a bowl of hard-boiled eggs: seriously? Dean's Martha Stewart side was also something those demons would never have thought to copy.

"Are there any more burritos?"

"Oh. Ah, no. I sent them with Cas."

Kevin peered around the fridge door. Something in Dean's tone was off. But the dude was staring at his drink, his face in shadows.

Yeah, not weird at all.

He spied the bowl of fruit as he was about to duck back into the fridge, and tried to remember when he'd last had an apple. Not counting those apple fritter donuts Dean had brought the other day. Too long, probably; his mom would have had a fit.

Feeling abruptly subdued himself, Kevin took an apple and a knife and dropped into the seat across from Dean.

"Castiel okay?" he asked as he peeled.

Dean gave him a surprisingly sharp glance. "Yeah, why?"

Kevin shrugged. "I dunno. He kinda looked like someone stole his harp."

"Yeah…" Dean dragged a hand over his face, and Kevin remembered Sam telling him once that Dean blamed himself for everything bad that happened to those he cared about. "He, uh, he's got a lot on his plate right now. He's been demoted to human."

"Yeah, he told me." A perfect single peel. Channing had told him once that if you threw a whole apple peel over your shoulder, it would form the first letter of your beloved's name. It'd been easy to see a "C" then, but there was no point in trying anymore. "Why doesn't he stay here, like me?" Kevin asked as he belatedly got up to retrieve a plate, and drop the peel in the trash.

Dean didn't answer for a moment, and when he did, his voice was so soft, Kevin almost didn't hear him. "He can't."

Maybe that was why Dean was out here drinking alone at 3:33 in the morning. Kevin was curious, but there was a very definite period at the end of that statement, and it wasn't really his place to ask. So he just sat down and started to cut up the apple.

"Dude, why don't you just eat it?"

He tilted an eyebrow at Dean. "Got out of the habit when I had braces." Off Dean's blank look, he added, "On my teeth?"

Only foggy recognition. Kevin felt a little of his self-pity slip away: yeah, his life sucked now, but at least he'd gotten sixteen years of normalcy and a loving mom. Had Dean and Sam ever even gone to a dentist when growing up?

He cored the apple in silence, Dean idly following the movement. Kevin's mind was elsewhere, too. Like, "How 'bout Sam, is he okay?"

Another oddly guilty start and stare: seriously, did Dean really feel responsible for everyone? His "Why?" was practically a growl.

Kevin drew back a little because, even if it was Dean, Dean looking like _that_ was kinda scary. "Uh, he said something about blackouts?" He wasn't about to bring up the whole spellcheck thing at this point.

Dean's mouth twisted, eyes dark. "Sam's fine." Bitten-off, hard words. Worry, Kevin recognized, but also what seemed like more secrets. He sighed to himself: that was something else the Winchesters were really, really good at. It probably made sense, with their life, but he'd kinda had his fill of secrets. "He's just still recovering from the Trials," Dean finished more quietly.

Kevin winced. "Yeah…sorry about that." If he'd only translated faster…

That cleared Dean's face right up. "Hey, uh-uh, that is not on you, you hear me? You did your best—none of us knew."

Kevin nodded. But the apple still tasted like Styrofoam in his mouth.

"Did you hear Reapers are going rogue?" Dean asked after a beat.

It was a blatant change of subject, but then, neither of them had liked the previous one. "Reapers?" Kevin echoed, taking another bite.

"Yeah. You know, reapers of the dead? They're a subset of angels, just, without the wings." Dean tilted his head. "I think. Or the suits. Or the same rules."

"Huh." He went on to another slice; it was starting to taste good. He'd kinda forgotten about fruit for a while. "So that's…bad?"

Dean shrugged. "Maybe? I mean, a couple are going after Cas, so that's not good. But at least they can be killed with angel swords, too. And everything's so screwed up in Halo-land, what's one more mess?"

It sounded depressingly like a philosophy of life. "Uh. Sorry?"

Dean gave him a wry smile, the most he'd looked like himself during their whole exchange, and he shoved his empty glass away as he stood. "Think I'm gonna hit the sack. Sam's gonna be up at some disgusting hour. He's been wanting me to go jogging with him." A snort conveyed his opinion of that idea.

On impulse, Kevin shoved an apple quarter at him. "Here. Midnight snack."

Dean's eyebrows went up. "You do know it's, like—"

"Three-thirty-something? I saw."

"Huh." Dean shoved half the apple in and said around a full mouth. "G'night, Kev."

"Good-night, Dean."

Dean stopped at the door, hands bracketing the doorway. He turned back to give Kevin another indecipherable look. "Let me know if Sam asks about anything else or does anything…you know, weird, okay?"

"Oh. Sure," Kevin stammered.

Another smile, this one as sunshine-y and fake as the previous half-one was real. "Good. Gotta keep an eye on you geeks." A nod, and he was gone.

 _Anything weird_. Right, like how would he even know? Weird was pretty much the norm around there.

Kevin shoved the last piece of apple in his mouth and stood. Well, that was a problem for another day. Or, technically, later that day. First he needed some sleep.

And if on his way to his room he saw an eerie blue glow coming from Sam's room, and Dean slumped on the bed they'd designated earlier for Castiel, well, that was just life with the Winchesters, right?

 **The End**


End file.
